SA “Baz” Collins – hails from the San Francisco Bay Area where he lives with his husband, their daughter and wonder of all wonders, a whirlwind of a granddaughter and two exotic looking cats. A classically trained singer/actor (under a different name), Baz knows a good yarn when he sees it.

Based on years of his work as an actor, Baz specializes in character study pieces. It is more important for him as an author that the reader comes away with a greater understanding of the characters, and the reasons they make the decisions they do, rather than the situations they are in. It is this deep dive into their manners, their experiences and how they process the world around them that make up the body of Mr. Collins' work.

The picture displayed here is of me around the time the bulk of this site will explore. It’s here for context purposes.

Author's Note: My posts on this site are vignettes of my life as a queer boy through my adulthood. They are meant to be unapologetic, unflinching and evocative of the time for each piece I post. They will not be in chronological order (at least for now), but rather reflections, as if I opened a box and the stories I'd written and collected about myself fell to the floor and I am picking them all back up only to get caught up in each memory and let them bubble to the surface here. One day I will publish them as a book with a chronological narrative. But for now, they are piecemeal and are intended to impart the self-discovery I made coming to terms with who I am.

All of these stories are true. Only some names have been changed where I felt it was necessary to protect third parties referenced in this series. In cases where I don't change them, I will only use first names and may change up the spelling.

Clamath Boy, by the way, is derived from the name of the street I lived on in my childhood. It is not misspelled and if it is, then blame the city planners of San Diego for it.

My Recent Posts

Posted July 21, 2016

When I came home to a well lit house

Year: 1975

Age: 11 years old

Place: Spring Valley, CA (Suburb of San Diego)

There’s been much talk as of late in the blogosphere with queers commenting on when they realized “they knew” … when their bright shiny unicorn buried deep inside of them decided to make itself known.

The funny thing is I think I knew from a very early age. My parents had a lot to deal with when I came along. I was their first, and I was as precocious as all fuck, too. I was speaking full sentences by the age of two. Language came easily to me. By the time I was in the third grade I was testing out with a college level vocabulary.

Anatomy of a Bully – Part 1: Eddie

Year: 1973

Age: 8 years old

Place: Spring Valley, CA (Suburb of San Diego)

This one took a bit of time to gestate. Yeah, writing these is the closest I’ll come to giving birth. Now, I know my dad always said that that distinction was solely for the passing of kidney stones (and yes, I’ve had one and I’ll have to agree with him on it), but in my case – cranking these bad boys out is just as gut wrenching because they’re my memories, my life experiences I am allowing to bubble up and show up here on the VQR blog.

So, why do them? That’s the obvious question, right? So obvi – as the kids say these days. Jesus, as a sidebar conversation, can I tell you I am always in a constant state of grousing that I get to refer to people younger than me as “kids” and it actually means something? I just fucking hate that. I have such a great appreciation for my elders (who are still kicking it around) now that I am at that age they were when I was younger. They were right: it looks totally different from this side of that youth obsessed, ageist fence.

To answer that question, before I get rolling on the topic at hand, I am doing it because I don’t feel queer people document their lives as much as we should. It’s sort of a catch 22 with me: in that, I come from an early enough era where I am highly suspicious about what our governments are doing with all of this information that is constantly pouring from the masses. We’re being cataloged, categorized and reduced to algorithms that work to predict our next move. So, given that, why contribute? Because our voice is an important one. Each of our journeys is what’s missing from the greater discussion. As queer people we’ve become inured to the heteronormative message out there as if our own voice has less credence and doesn’t belong in the mainstream context. That’s why I am doing this.